Mitsubishi has announced the end of its rear projection screen TVs. For many years if you had big-screen TV, it was typically a rear projection style unit. As pricing on LCD and plasma TV sets came down and screen sizes increased, consumer interest in rear projection TVs waned.

Mitsubishi was the last manufacturer producing these relics from the past, but the company has informed its authorized service centers 73-inch, 82-inch, and 92-inch DLP projection TVs will be discontinued.

Mitsubishi Electrical Visual Solutions America (MEVSA) president and CEO Junichi Nose stated that the change was part of an "important change in business direction, which will necessitate a corresponding restructuring of the MEVSA organization."

MESVA's Max Wasinger added, "We are in the midst of an orderly exit from the DLP TV business. MEVSA will now focus on B-to-B (projectors, display wall, printers, digital signage, monitors, etc.) and the home theater projector business."

Mitsubishi's line of projection screen TVs were far from inexpensive. The 75-inch LaserVue TV sold for about $4,000 at retail locations around the country.

But 42" is no longer a relevant number.You can get a 42" LCD TV for less than $600 which is ridiculously light and runs ridiculously cool.

That's kinda the point. Even the 7x" LCD screens are becoming crazy cheap --- check them out in Costco, or the Best Buy house brand Insignia some time.

Yes, snobs can find a thousand things to complain about in these cheap TVs; but the bottom line is that once a technology is "good enough" convenience beats supposedly better specs every time. We have seen this over and over again (starting, perhaps, with CDs, then on through MP3s, now in the space of dedicated game consoles. Every time the fans rise up and deny reality, insist that, no, the wonderful attributes of their favored technology are somehow relevant to this discussion. Mitsubishi, at least, hires realists who understand how the world works.

Because you will never see the resolution. In order to 'see' the 1080p resolution on a 42" HDTV you have to sit 5.5' away from it. If you are watching it from 12' away you aren't seeing any quality beyond a plain old DVD resolution, aka TV from the 50s-90s.